Contract Management Breakthrough from Dolphin Software Benefits Sharepoint Market
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18th May 2009, Reading, UK - Dolphin Software has launched Dolphin Contract Manager for SharePoint, contract management software that brings cost, time and risk reduction to the 60%+ organisations standardising on the Microsoft SharePoint platform*. The contract lifecycle management market is growing at 23% per year*. Dolphin Software also announces the signing of its first customer, Canadian firm Northland Ontario, plus five partners across the US, UK and Ireland: Gimmal Group, Mindlance, ICS Solutions, Triad Group and Spanish Point Technologies. www.dolphin-software.com
Most large organisations have 20,000-40,000 contracts* and 60-80% of all business transactions are governed by contracts or agreements*, which on average take upwards of 3 weeks to draft. However, many organisations do not have a clearly defined enterprise-wide process for drafting, reviewing, negotiating and managing contracts. Rarely is there clear visibility of contracts, which are often archived on paper or electronic systems, where key contract milestones, commitments and obligations remain hidden. It is estimated that over 10% of all executed contracts are lost*.
"Using technology to automate and control the contract lifecycle management process is relatively new, but has huge benefits for organisations. Contract management software creates a single repository where everything associated with contracts, from cradle to grave, can be tracked," says Ronan Lavelle, Dolphin Software CEO. "Companies that have standardised on the Microsoft SharePoint platform can improve their return on investment, and for partners, contract management software is a rich new seam of revenue."
In-house legal and procurement departments are typical customers for contract management software, but also CIOs, CFOs, sales human resources and contract managers. However, in most cases, automated administration of contracts organisation-wide is rare, since few organisations have a single person with responsibility for contracts on an enterprise-wide scale. Risks include contracts being renewed without review, penalty clauses, lost revenue or cost-saving opportunities. (See editors' notes for more background.)
Tim Cummins, President of the International Association for Contract & Commercial Management (IACCM), "With the sheer volume of contracts that most organisations have to deal with, and their growing complexity, contract management software is the logical way forward. Automating control of contracts means that they become more visible, accessible and easier to monitor. Our research shows that this improves performance in cycle times, financial returns and the quality of relationship management. Dolphin Contract Manager is a welcome addition to the contract management industry, offering an attractive and highly practical way forward for many organisations."
Features
Dolphin Contract Manager provides a single, centralised repository and, by automating the process and dealing with minutiae, frees employees' time while giving them the assurance that vital details are not being overlooked. Features include: a contract clause tracker; Compliance Monitoring & regulatory requirements; automated alerts; Tracking of Price Rebates; Reporting; Contract negotiation workspaces; Workflow and reporting tools; Author workspaces; Contract drafting and storage.
For partners, Dolphin Software has developed the Dolphin Alliance Programme to provide a fast-track to adding contract management to their service portfolios.
Comments from customers and partners
"Dolphin Software is a complete lifecycle system for contract management that can leverage our existing Microsoft SharePoint and Microsoft SQL technologies and infrastructure. The interface is intuitive, and can be customized to our brand, creating a seamless portal experience for the end user," said Tony Szaranski, Chief Information Officer of Northland Ontario, the first officially announced customer for Dolphin Contract Manager.
Said Donal Cullen, CEO of Spanish Point Technologies Ltd, one of Dolphin Software's first partners, "Dolphin Contract Manager 2009 is a great example of a new breed of Enterprise Applications which are design to leverage Microsoft SharePoint as an application platform. This platform has allowed Dolphin to include features and functionality within its Enterprise Contract Management application that is difficult and complex to develop in competing technologies, provides a familiar user experience and ensures that corporate IT teams can seamlessly install it in their existing environment."
Ronan Geraghty of Microsoft said, "We are delighted with the success of Dolphin Software. It is a testament to the advantages of the Microsoft BizSpark programme and demonstrates the value of Microsoft .NET and SharePoint as a development platform as Dolphin has been able to leverage SharePoint to rapidly build a full feature enterprise contract management application. As members of the BizSpark Programme they have had the advantage of access to Microsoft software, development tools and network partners."
About Dolphin Software
Dolphin Software was founded in early 2009 by long-established executives with extensive track records in the Enterprise Content Management and business consulting markets. Its mission is to make the benefits of contract management software available to organisations worldwide, leveraging the increasing prevalence of Microsoft SharePoint. The company is currently privately funded, focusing on building its operations in the UK and the US. Dolphin Software is a member of Microsoft BizSpark. (See editor's notes for more information about Dolphin Software)
About Northland Ontario
Ontario Northland Transportation Commission is an operational entity of the Province of Ontario since 1902 serving a large geographical area in north eastern Ontario, Canada. Approximately 1000 people are employed providing rail freight, rail car refurbishment, telecommunications as well as motor coach and rail passenger services.
About Spanish Point Technologies
Established in August 2005, Spanish Point Technologies Ltd is a young, fast-growing and highly innovative Irish IT company. A Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, Spanish Point won the Microsoft World Wide Partner of the Year Award 2007 in Information Worker Solutions, Smart Client Development. Its unique specialist skill-sets give it a leading position in integration solutions and Microsoft application server technologies. Headquartered in Dublin, the company has two offshore development centres in Eastern Europe. Customers include Allied Irish Bank, American Insurance Group (AIG), Elan Corporation and the Health Service Executive (HSE).
Market Background
Contract management is nothing new: organisations in the private and public sectors have been managing contracts - to a lesser or greater extent - for many years. However, using technology to automate and control the process more efficiently has only begun to emerge in the past few years and although relatively few companies are taking advantage of this development at the moment, it is set to become one of the fastest growing areas of IT software-based solutions in the next few years.
Why contract management software has not been widespread before
So why has it taken so long to reach the market? The reality is that managing contracts is not straightforward and until recent developments in technology, also not straightforward to automate. Contracts pervade so many different aspects of an organisation, because just about every purchase or sale, employee hire or legal agreement is governed by a contract in one form or another. Therefore, contracts are typically scattered throughout the organisation - sales, purchasing, IT, the legal department, property management, HR - and rarely does any one single person or department have visibility or responsibility for overseeing them all.
Some organisations do have contract managers, but these are relatively few and far between. It is estimated that approximately ten per cent of all contracts are actually lost.
Why contract management software is needed
Better contract management is required because it can lead to cost and time savings, greater efficiency, improved revenue and regulatory compliance. If no-one is monitoring contracts, then an organisation is leaving itself exposed to wasted expenditure, missed opportunities to save costs or even exposure to risk. Mismanagement of contracts does not have to be an inevitable by-product of business.
By missing contract milestones, an organisation could suffer one or more of the following:
o Miss an opportunity to renegotiate the terms of an on-going contract
o Incur penalties by missing deadlines to comply with terms and conditions
o Fail to secure the on-going contract from an existing customer, instead allowing a competitor to win the business (typical examples include office equipment renewals)
o Legal action taken by ex-employees or other parties
Reducing the time and cost that contracts involve
Considerable time is taken up by the process of drafting and reviewing contracts, typically several weeks and often longer. By automating the contract management process, employees' time can be used more effectively for other priorities, in turn helping to reduce costs. Using contract lifecycle management software to create a central repository for all contracts means that features such as alerts can be used to reduce the task of having to regular check for upcoming contract milestones, while reporting functions further help to minimise the time spent managing contracts.
Benefits of Microsoft SharePoint
The growth of Microsoft SharePoint has given Dolphin Software the perfect basis on which to construct a robust contract management software solution that can be rolled out enterprise-wide and in a scalable fashion. Organisations across the world are now deploying Microsoft SharePoint as a platform that enables them to make applications available to users 'wherever, whenever, however', whether from the office or remotely. Microsoft SharePoint makes it feasible to streamline and manage knowledge assets across an organisation far more effectively.
*Useful statistics:
o The contract management lifecycle management market is growing at a rate of 23% - Forrester Research
o Over 10% of all executed contracts are lost- Faulkner Information Services
o It takes 3.4 weeks on average to draft and approve contracts - Forrester Research
o Most organisations have 20,000-40,000 contracts - PWC
o 60-80% of business transactions are governed by contracts or agreements - Gartner Research
o 80% of Best-in-Class firms presently use contract management solutions to help place customers on contract compared to almost half that percent (42%) for all others....Leading firms are experiencing 90% contract renewal rate, 28% improvement in SLA/contract compliance over the past two years, 26% increase in total service revenue in the past two years - Aberdeen Group
o Only 1% of companies have implemented contract management - source unknown
o Poor contract management cost the City of New Orleans USD $4 million on a single project- result of investigation by the Inspector General
o Contract Management software solutions are now perceived to be even more important by Contract Management professionals in an economic downturn. - research commissioned by the International Association for Contract & Commercial Management(IACCM)
o There is a desire to standardise on one single technology platform for management the contract lifecycle process - IACCM
o In 2008, 61 percent of users surveyed said they were deploying SharePoint enterprise-wide. Another 28 percent of those using SharePoint in departments today are expected to expand usage to the enterprise within the next 12 months - IDC
More about Dolphin Software
Executives & funding - Dolphin Software was established in early 2009 by Ronan Lavelle, who previously held senior roles at firms including Open Text and Hummingbird. Currently funded by private investors, the company draws on the key executives' combined experience in the enterprise content management and software markets.
Locations - the company's headquarters are in Ireland, with key markets for the next 12 months being the UK and the US. However, Dolphin Software intends to roll out its solution worldwide.
Channel-to-market - Dolphin Software sees the Dolphin Alliance Programme being vital to making Dolphin Contract Management widely available across the globe. The company has already announced five partnerships, with more in development. Given the exponential growth of contract lifecycle management, Dolphin Contract Manager represents a major revenue opportunity for resellers, ISVs, systems integrators, consultants and service partners.
Technology - the culmination of two years market research and development, Dolphin Contract Manager uses the Microsoft SharePoint platform as an application development environment and adds advanced and unique functionality to standard Microsoft SharePoint and Office 2007 features, thus enabling end-to-end contract lifecycle management automation.
Benefits of Microsoft SharePoint include being able to link particular parts of a Word document with an associated metadata field, so that if the document content is changed, the relevant metadata field is updated automatically. With version-controlled metadata, a complete audit trail of both the document and metadata heritage can be produced to satisfy the regulator, while simultaneously keeping track of key contract obligations.
